The Litany of Loreto, with 49 different appellations of the Blessed Virgin Mary,[1] is a form of responsive petition that Christians devoutly invoke her with insistence praise and supplication. These titles exalt Mary in her highest prerogatives in relation to her Incarnate Divine Son.

In the Dominican tradition, this Litany was sung every Saturday after the Salve Regina to honor the Mother of God, to pay homage for all the blessings the brethren of the Order have received through her maternal intercession, and to implore the mercy of God through the intercession of His Blessed Mother.[2] In times of peril,[3] the Order of Preachers solemnly sang the Litany of Loreto with greater fervor and intensification.

The Order of Preachers adopted the singing of the Litany of Loreto on Saturdays from the Church of St. Mary Major in Rome. Prior to the sixteenth century, the recitation of the Litany of Loreto was a private devotion. After its ecclesial approval in 1587, it became a public devotion in St. Mary Major a decade later. Pope Paul V made it an obligation to musically intone the Litany of Loreto every Saturday at Our Lady’s Basilica in 1613. The Litany of Loreto was inserted in the Dominican Breviary the following year with two minor, yet significant, additions. The appellation Regina Praedicatorum was inserted after Regina Virginum and Regina Sacratissimi Rosarii came after Regina Sanctorum monium with special permission from the Congregation of Rites.[4] The general chapter of 1615 not only reinforced the obligation, but also reported of its common acceptance within the Order of Preachers.[5] Many provinces and houses of the Order continue to observe this Marian custom. The Litany of Loreto is either recited or solemnly sung once a month or weekly on Saturday in honor of the Virgin Mary and to invoke her maternal intercession. Our province adopted the latter; we recite the Litany on Saturday.

[1] 19 titles referred to Mary either as Mother or Virgin, 13 invocations identified the powers and qualities of Mary, 4 highlighted the common titles of Mary, and 12 addressed Mary as Queen.

[4] Since these two insertions were made prior to the decree in 1631, prohibiting new clauses added to the litany, the Congregation of Rites in 1675 made special exemption to the Order and its Confraternities of the Rosary. The houses of the Order welcomed the new devotion to the Blessed Mother. See Bonniwell, 312.